[ORIGINAL MSRP $249. Purchased from Best Buy for $249.99 in September 2025, currently $199 on Amazon.]
[Tl;dr: The Pro 3 are a perfectly nice pair of true wireless headphones. I personally would rather buy another pair of the Pro 2 at a $70-90 discount if I were in the market for a new pair, both because I prefer the sound signature of the 2 and because the things you get with the 3 over the 2 (better ANC, better dust/water resistance, and heart rate monitoring) ‘solve’ problems that I don’t have with the 2. The 3 doesn’t do anything for me that the 2 doesn’t, and the 2 are genuinely one of my favorite (and most used!) headphones.
If you want a bassier tune (i.e. you like Bose or Sony headphones), you will be using them in very inclement weather or very dusty environments, or you want a heart rate monitor and don’t wear an Apple Watch/Fitbit/etc., the 3 might be worth it for you. As for me, I’ve already traded my review unit and gone back to my trusty original Pro 2.]
Scores:
Cost-agnostic: 6 out of 10 Denalis
Cost-sensitive: 3 out of 10 Denalis1
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Scores:
- Introduction
- The Basics
- Sound
- Noise cancellation
- Build
- Appearance
- Functionality
- Value & Comparisons
- Overall
Intro to the Intro
I’ve been leaning into a new feature here at Phil’s Superpower of Enthusiasm, Quick Reviews! There are a number of things that I’d love to get quick notes down on for my own edification/memory, but that I don’t want to spend the 10-15 hours I devote to most of my (overly?) in-depth reviews. Some of these will be things that aren’t in production anymore (so it’s less likely anyone will read a review), or are extra niche, or are things that I didn’t particularly like but want to be able to point people to my reasoning, or that are in a category I don’t spend a lot of time with (like IEMs). Today, the new Apple AirPods Pro 3!
Introduction
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for most of the last decade, you know what AirPods are. These are the third generation of Apple’s flagship true wireless earbud line, the Pro. While I have had VERY mixed feelings about most of the AirPods, the Pro 2 were a true standout: they were wonderfully tuned, incredibly built, and an all-around delight even at their original MSRP. At $180 or $200, the price they have been available for much of the last year or two, they’re about the best value in true wireless. I really, really love them, with my main pair riding in my pocket most days and the spare pair I picked up living in my computer bag just in case. When Apple announced the most recent update a few months back, I was cautiously optimistic.
The reviews have been … not great. Some fair, some not2, but generally pretty negative. And I mostly agree with the overarching theme of most reviews, though I’ll offer a few caveats.
My torture testing list: Apple, Tidal, Spotify.]
The Basics
The AirPods Pro 3 are the 2025 update to 2022’s really excellent AirPods Pro 2, the first AirPods that I personally thought were worth using. They are, in most ways, a substantial upgrade to the Pro 2; better battery, better ANC, more advanced features like heartbeat sensing and dust/water resistance, etc., but they are pretty divisive in the audiophile community which largely loved the Pro 2 (as I did) and who find the Pro 3’s tune a bit too consumer-sounding.
The thing is? AirPods aren’t made for people like us. I’ve tried every generation of Airpods, and the Pro 2 was the first pair since the original wired earbuds3 that I thought was worth listening to. The recent AirPods 4 and 4 ANC are pretty deeply mediocre headphones, and I wouldn’t use them for anything other than listening to NPR while walking Denali. The Pro 3 are at least better than that; they’re perfectly listenable.
In isolation, the bass, mids, and treble are all fine; the problem (to me) is in the relatively balance among them.
Sound
[Disclaimer: the Pro 3 are a very sophisticated device that do a lot of internal balancing based on the actual way your ears are being presented sound, using a mic inside your ear and changing the tuning based on the volume you are listening at, so take everything with a grain of salt. I personally mostly listen around 60-65 dB most of the time, so I’m getting a different tune than someone who routinely listens at 85 db; the V-shape is supposedly more pronounced at lower volumes and gets flatter the louder you listen. So my comments re: sound are most directly on point for someone who listens around the same levels I do; if you listen loudly you’ll get less bass and treble than I do.]
The biggest knock on the Pro 3, and I think it’s a fair one, is that they’re a much more consumer-friendly tune than the (mostly) neutral Pro 2. The Pro 3 have a substantially boosted midbass and treble, and a relatively flat midrange. I personally prefer the tune on the Pro 2, but the Pro 3 are hardly offensive. I’d put the tune roughly in line with some of the more v-shaped mainstream IEMs; maybe a Truthear: RED or a Moondrop Aria.
I really like the soundstage on the Pro 3; it’s consistent, wide, and has decent front-to-back depth, though both dimensions are flattened when ANC is turned on. Dynamics are good, and microdynamics are nice (though both also suffer a bit with ANC active).
Bass
The bass on the Pro3 is definitely more pronounced than than Pro 2 (especially the midbass), and though I would prefer slightly less, it’s not an offensive amount of bass and for me it never edges into thumpiness or splatter. It might, in fact, be my favorite presentation of the bass on “Out of My Hands” that I’ve experienced, full and rich without being overbearing. The bassy bell tones on “Angel (Blur Remix)” hit solidly and vibrate appropriately, and I actually like the balance between bass and treble that Apple struck (though, again, personally I’d turn down both a notch). The cello on “What Did I Do?” is engrossing without distracting from Justin Hicks’ excellent vocals. When the bassline kicks in on “Love Can Damage Your Health”, you get a satisfying rumble, and you get all of the notes on “Got ‘Til It’s Gone”, even the ones that tend to disappear on some rigs.
Overall, I’d say the bass in isolation is mostly excellent: strong, clean, and precise. Every once in a while it’s a little much (on “Thunder Lightning” it can bury the tom pattern at times), but it’s perfectly acceptable.
Midrange
I think the mids on the Pro 3 are the place where the tuning lets us down the most; while they’re pretty great in isolation, in any track where there’s a lot going on in the upper/midbass and lower treble they can be a little buried in the mix. Jill Scott’s voice fades a little into the background on “Calls”, and I’d like more forwardness from Amelia Meath’s ethereal vocals on “Coffee.”
It’s not bad, but it’s not as great as the Pro 2, and the balance could be better here.
Treble
The treble is not the tune I’d pick, but it’s not problematic to me and I’m a little treble sensitive. On some tracks individual instruments can be a little sharp (the bells on “Coffee,” the cymbal pattern at 3:00 on “Love Can Damage Your Health (Laid Mix)”, etc.) but they’re not so sharp as to prevent me from happily listening to them. They do fine with the potentially screechy guitars on “2021” and Miles’ solo on “Will O’ the Wisp.”
While the AirPods Pro series are surprisingly hard to measure, when you get a solid measurement the differences are noticeable but not huge:
You can see that the bass (especially the mid bass) is elevated, there’s a weird dip in the lower midrange, and the treble is … just a bit funky on the 3.
Noise cancellation
This is one of the places where the Pro 3 are a distinct upgrade over the Pro 2 to me. Apple says the 3 have 4 times more noise canceling than the original Pro (compared to 2 times more for the Pro 2), but I don’t have any idea what “4x more ANC” means. To me, subjectively, they do a better job of canceling noise, but I don’t have any way of doing a quantitative measurement of that.
Don’t get me wrong; the Pro 2 ANC is REALLY good; for years they’ve been what I wear for concerts, when mowing the lawn or using power tools, or for office environments where I need to hear people talking but not the background noises, but the Pro 3 are a real step up. I wouldn’t put them in the same category as the best ANC overears, but I’ve never encountered an earbud that I think really competes with the cancellation on these. The transparency mode is also excellent; I wore these for the second half of a loud jazz show this weekend and was able to hear the music very well and very comfortably with them in my ears in adaptive mode. And in pure ANC mode, it’s maybe a little too good for me to use while walking my dog as I cannot hear cars around me at all.
The passive isolation is also slightly better than the Pro 2, likely due to the hybrid foam/silicon eartips that Apple has swapped to. I’m rarely using the Pro 2 or 3 with noise cancellation/transparency entirely off, but it’s nice to know that’s an option.
Build
This is one of the bummers, to me. The earphones themselves are both slightly larger than the Pro 2 and slightly differently angled. I know that a lot of people didn’t find the old silicon tips comfortable, but for me they disappeared into my ears after a few minutes of listening. The Pro 3 are larger than the Pro 2; not a lot, but enough that I’m pretty much always aware that they’re in my ears. I wondered if they would start to fade into the background as I got more accustomed to them, but after a few weeks I’m still very aware that they’re there. I also am generally not a fan of foam ear tips for IEMs; I don’t think I’ve ever picked them as my preference over silicon tips on anything. The Apple hybrid tips are better than any purely foam tips I’ve tried for both comfort and consistency of seal (they fill up my ear canals pretty quickly, unlike some foam tips which take 10-20 seconds to fully expand), but I’d still take straight up silicon every time.
Everything else about them is functionally identical to the 2; the case is slightly larger but not so much that I care. The battery life of the earphone themselves is slightly longer (8 hours vs 6 hours), while when you include the case it’s slightly shorter (24 hours vs 30 hours). This isn’t a meaningful difference for me; I can’t remember ever having run out of charge on my Pro 2 (though I don’t use them for long-haul flights), and I only rarely have had to charge the case while using them because they’d run down too far. The mag and USB-C charging case is a big upgrade over the Pro 2’s original Lightning-only charging case, but at this point I think Apple is only selling a mag-charging, USB-C case for even the Pro 2.
I think the controls are slightly more responsive (particularly the swiping for volume control), but that was never a problem for me with the Pro 2 anyway so it’s not a meaningful upgrade for me.
Appearance
From my Airpods 3 review: “I knew what they looked like. You know what they look like. Everyone knows what they look like. You either like them or you don’t, and you know which camp you fall in already. Honestly, I think they look kind of dumb and I think the old wired ones were a slightly better aesthetic (I was a sucker for those ads after all), but Apple is Apple is Apple.”
I do like the appearance of the Pro style more than the regular AirPods, and these are so similar in appearance to the 2 as to be functionally identical.
Functionality
This is where the Pro 3 have the most differentiation; the Pro 3 have both better water/dust resistance (IP57 vs IP54) and include heart rate monitoring, a new feature for this generation. I do wear my Airpods in inclement weather and dusty/sawdusty situations pretty regularly, so I would appreciate the increased resistance to particles and water, but I have had my original pair of Pro 2 for coming up on three years of heavy use and they’re still working fine. The heartbeat sensor is cool; I had a pair of wired Bose that had a heart rate feature that I really enjoyed,4 but I wear an Apple Watch for something like 22 hours a day, with a really excellent heart rate monitor built in.
If you need a heart rate monitor, that might be a selling point for you. For me, I’d much rather have that function in a watch I wear all the time (and that has a better, more consistent battery life) than a pair of headphones that require I be listening to them and can potentially run out after a day of work before I hit the gym.
Value & Comparisons
This is the real rub right? The Pro 3 are perfectly nice true wireless earphone. I’ll take them over almost everything I’ve tried in this space. They sound better than the AirPods Gen 1, 2, 3, 4, and 4ANC, the original Pro, the Status Audio Between 3ANC, the Moondrop Space Travel, the Jabra Elite 65T, and the Soundcore A40. They have better ANC than anything in this space; I’d take their ANC performance over some of the overears I’ve tried (and liked), and their transparency mode is unmatched by anything I’ve tried and it’s not even close. I’d even take them over the Campfire Audio Orbit for most applications because of the excellent ANC and transparency mode. The only thing that really competes with them is the prior generation Pro 2.
For me, I’m picking the Pro 2 over the Pro 3 pretty much every time. If they were the same price, I’d probably lean towards the Pro 3. I get why people don’t like the Pro 3’s tune, but I view them as a wireless version of an IEM rather than a serious audiophile product. I don’t use the Pro 2 for critical listening: I have a wall full of better headphones for audio quality, and the niche the Pro 2 (and 3) fill for me is nice background noise when I’m out in the world, paired with excellent noise reduction for specific kinds of tasks. And while the 3 is better for ANC and potentially for durability, it’s not $100 more. And that’s the premium for the newest model: right now Costco is selling the Pro 3 for $250, and last week they had the Pro 2 available (with Apple Care included!) for $149.5
Overall
The Pro 3 are a fine product, and probably a better choice for folks who want a more consumer-focused tune. Here’s what it boils down to for me:
- I prefer the tune on the 2s, but the difference isn’t huge. They’re bassier and more treble-y than the 2, but it’s like a 10% difference, not a 100% difference.
- The ANC on the Pro 3 is distinctly better, but the Pro 2 was already good enough for pretty much everything *I* do.
- The Pro 3 are slightly less comfortable for me; the 2s fade into the background after a few minutes in my ears and after a few weeks I’m still constantly aware of the 3s in my ear. But not offensively so.
- The HR sensor is pretty cool, but I already wear an Apple watch with a perfectly nice heart beat sensor 22 hours a day.
Audiophiles who are losing their minds over the Pro 3 should reflect on the fact that Airpods aren’t for us; they’re designed for people who think that the Sony XM series or Bose’s options sound good. The fact that we got a genuinely excellent product in the Pro 2 was like catching lightning in a bottle, and we shouldn’t expect it every time.6 Yes, Apple should give us the ability to EQ in the app, but we also probably shouldn’t expect them to give it to us. That’s not what they do. That’s not who they are as a company. And if you doubt that, I’d point you towards their decision to force us to use Bluetooth and choosing only to support their own codec.
If you are in the market for a new pair of ANC ear buds and want the heartbeat capability, they’re perfectly nice. Otherwise, save yourself $100 and pick up a pair of the excellent Pro 2s on sale, $149 right now at Costco. I might snag another pair and throw them in the closet for when my current pairs eventually die (my oldest are three years old).
In fact, I’ve already traded my review unit.
#reviews #headphones #sennheiser #6XX #anc #spatialaudio #meh #2025 #99noir #meze #sunglasses #overear #cans #hifiman #arya #stealth #editionxs #budget #hahahaha #iems #quickreview
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